Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Between 1996 and 1999, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima studied plastic arts at FAAP, in São Paulo, and from then on they began to work together, producing enticing works that treat the themes of the body, image and technology.

Their work is not limited to only one support. They produce photographs, videos, installations and performances. During the opening of the exposition Grátis (For free), at Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo, 2004), they mounted a stand to sell their artistic videos (VCDs and DVDs), named “generics”, for R$ 3,00 (1 dollar), at cost price. During the whole exposition they sold their videos at cost price, a critical performance that positions the artist within the great art market.

In 2003 they participated in the exposition Modos de usar (Ways of using), also at Galeria Vermelho, with the videoinstallation Que é de [Which is of] (2003), an installation that requires the participation of the viewer to reveal the images. The projection is veiled with a strong light, and the viewer can only see the image when his shadow is cast on the white screen. The screen displays, in an almost oneiric form, a wood in which people appear and disappear among the trees, as in a hide-and-seek game, or between image and shadow in the installation itself.

Between 2002 and 2003, they worked hard on a project that culminated in the exposition “In ´vel” [In ble] (2003), at Galeria Vermelho. In this exposition they displayed Sem título#5 [Untitled #5] (2002), a video projection that reveals an individual immersed in an organic environment.

The pair of artists also produced the performance Interferência (Interference), with Maurício Ianês and Edilaine Cunha. In this work, the artists alter the electric scoreboard used in fencing competitions to pick up radio waves. In this case, it seems that the body becomes an interface that allows communication through its movements.

Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima also produced solo works. The video Lotus, by Leandro Lima, is one of them. This video shows a person hiding his face while leaves grow on his arms. There are also the installation Interlúdio (Interlude), a video that shows a beetle upside-down and its countless, useless attempts to turn over to its natural position, and Azul.dxf [Blue.dxf] (1998/2003), a synthetically produced photograph of the sky and the sea. This works took part respectively in the expositions A subversão dos meios [Subversion of means], at Itaú Cultural (2003, São Paulo), and A foto dissolvida [The dissolved photo], at SESC Pompéia (2004, São Paulo).

Gisela Motta participated in the exposition In ´vel with the solo work Retratos (Pictures), an incisive series of photographs of empty roads with names of people in the surroundings of São Paulo. The images impress by the rigour of the compositions and the amplitude of the landscapes around each of the names. The road's empty spaces, apparently lifeless, are properly named and seem to gain the status of “almost-people” or “almost-subjectivity”, as a counterpoint to the solitude and hardness of the empty road.

In 1999, they produced the loop video Sem título #4 (Untitled #4), which shows a person playing on a swing. This apparently simple image is produced from such an angle that it ends up distorting the proportions; it seems that the horizon is constantly moving in a completely synthesized landscape. It seems to be a strange world, with peculiar physical laws. This video was exhibited in the Competitive Exhibition of the 13th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2001) and in the exposition Imagética (Imagery), in Curitiba (2003).

Still in 1999, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima participated in the exposition Outros Corpos (Other Bodies), at the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, in São Paulo, in the context of the 2nd Advanced Seminar on Semiotics and Communication. In this exposition, they presented the videoinstallations Sem título #1 [Untitled #1] (1997) and Sem título #2 [Untitled #2] (1998), works that are structured around new representations of the body.

In that same year, in the exposition Enigmas at the Galeria Brito Cirmino, in São Paulo, the pair of artists displayed the diptych “Gisela e Leandro”, two identical photographs produced by the fusion of the image of two people. Behind these faces, there are interfaces of image processor programs that reveal the peculiar world that generated these images, the synthetic environment of the images generated by countless algorithms.